Former TV comedy writer Lamar Sally has told of the awful moment he discovered that his now ex-wife, The View's Sherri Shepherd, was secretly plotting to get out of being a mother - while the baby was still in the womb.

The pair met at an LA party in 2009 and hit it off straightaway agreeing in their first phone conversation that they wanted a baby, said Sally.

Single dad: Lamar Sally (pictured, holding baby LJ) 'fell in love hard' with The View star Sherri Shepherd and the couple agreed to have a baby using a surrogate mother - but Shepherd backed out before LJ was born

Two years later they were married in a half-million-dollar ceremony and living in New York, and soon Shepherd, then 43, was footing a $100,000 bill for a surrogate mother.

But their happiness was not to last.

One month after the first sonogram, Sherpherd gave Sally and ultimatum: 'She said, "I can’t be the wife and mother you need,"' he recalled. '"You can take the kid and go to LA."'

Trust: Sally says Shepherd (pictured) had 'trust issues,' but was shocked when he discovered she had a secret lawyer who said she could get out of paying child support for LJ

Sally told Page Six he went into shock. 'I said, "I love you. We don’t have that many problems, but the ones you do have you need to confront. We have a baby on the way and he needs a mother. I’ll meet you halfway."'

Shepherd just told him they would work out visitation and child support.

But Sally stuck with it, sleeping in the guest room and trying to persuade his wife that they should raise their child together.

He says that things appeared to be getting better for about two weeks, until The View threw Shepherd an on-air birthday party - and Sally wasn't invited.

What he discovered shook him to his core: an email from a lawyer that Shepherd had already put on retainer. It read: ‘We will get you out of the surrogacy contract. We don’t think it’s enforceable.'

'My stomach dropped, I burst into tears,' Sally said. 'This is someone I love. How can you get out of being a mother to this child?'

A mother's touch: Though LJ is happy, Sally wants him to 'feel a mother's touch,' but says his much-publicized history with Shepherd means dating again is out of the question. He hopes Shepherd will return to AJ someday

Surrogate: Jessica Bartholomew was sued by the state of California after Sally was forced to go on welfare to support his son. She and Sally succeeded in making sure Shepherd would pay child support instead

Sally says that Shepherd had 'trust issues' after her previous husband, Jeffrey Tarpley - with whom she had a son also called Jeffrey - fathered a child with his mistress.

Nevertheless, it came as a shock to him when, the day after he discovered her secret lawyer, Shepherd told him to leave. Sally, who had moved to New York to be with Shepherd, returned to LA.

That was where he was living when their son, Lamar Jr. - or LJ - was born in August 2014. But the happiness of holding his son was 'tainted' for Sally by Shepherd's absence - and the discovery that LJ had a rare blood disorder, G6PD deficiency.

Worse, LJ had no health insurance - and Shepherd refused to put the boy on her own.

Sally, who was struggling to find work as a writer ('I would set meetings up with agents and managers, and they would cancel - I think after they found out who I was,' he told Page Six) applied for welfare to help his son.

However, that resulted in the state suing the surrogate mother, Jessica Bartholomew, for child support.

Sally and Bartholomew entered a legal battle to get Shepherd to pay child support and came out on top, although Shepherd appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. It ultimately cost Sally $100,000 in legal fees.

And, says Sally, his name was ruined on national TV. 'I got painted as a gold digger, that I used Sherri,' he said. 'Sherri’s friends in the media - Wendy Williams dogged me out every chance, Steve Harvey talked about me.'

That, he adds, has made it impossible to date - one quick Google and it's all over.

So it's a positive thing that LJ gives Sally a focus to his life - and it is clear that he dearly loves his son.

But until Shepherd accepts LJ as her own, there will always be a sadness in Sally's life. 'I waited 40 years until I found someone,' he told Page Six. 'I didn’t want to be a single father. I didn’t want my son to not know his mother’s touch.”